rse for it; but she was raised to a height that
would not let her look with envy upon peace and comfort. Luxurious quiet
people were as ripening glass-house fruits. Her bitter gathering of the
knowledge of life had sharpened her intellect; and the intellect, even
in the young, is, and not less usefully, hard metal rather than fallow
soil. But for the fountain of human warmth at her breast, she might
have been snared by the conceit of intellect, to despise the simple and
conventional, or shed the pity which is charity's contempt. She had only
to think of the kindness of the dear good ladies; her heart jumped to
them at once. And when she fancied hearing those innocent souls of women
embracing her and reproaching her for the knowledge of life she now
bore, her words down deep in her bosom were: It has helped me to bear
the shock of other knowledge! How would she have borne it before she
knew of the infinitely evil? Saving for the tender compassion weeping
over her mother, she had not much acute personal grief.

For this world condemning her birth, was the world tolerant of that
infinitely evil! Her intellect fortified her to be combative by
day, after the night of imagination; which splendid power is not so
serviceable as the logical mind in painful seasons: for night revealed
the world snorting Dragon's breath at a girl guilty of knowing its
vilest. More than she liked to recall, it had driven her scorched, half
withered, to the shelter of Dudley. The daylight, spreading thin at the
windows, restored her from that weakness. 'We will quit England,' she
said, thinking of her mother and herself, and then of her father's
surely following them. She sighed thankfully, half way through the
breakfast with Skepsey, at sight of the hour by the clock; she was
hurriedly sentient of the puzzle of her feelings, when she guessed at
a chance that Dudley would be delayed. She supposed herself as possibly
feeling not so well able to keep every thought of her head brooding on
her mother in Dudley's company.

Skepsey's face was just sufferable by light of day, if one pitied
reflecting on his honest intentions; it ceased to discolour another.
He dropped a few particulars of his hero in action; but the heroine
eclipsed. He was heavier than ever with his Matilda Pridden. At the
hour for departure, Perrin had a conveyance at the door. Nesta sent off
Skepsey with a complimentary message to Captain Dartrey. Her maid Mary
begged her to finish her